


All In Good Fun

by ToiletPaperPrincess



Series: Miscellaneous Fics [21]
Category: Kidou Keisatsu Patlabor | Mobile Police Patlabor
Genre: Asexuality, Awkward Conversations, Comfort, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26488585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToiletPaperPrincess/pseuds/ToiletPaperPrincess
Summary: Dating Noa is basically like goofing around with a best friend.  Then the subject of kissing comes up and things get serious...but not quite the way Asuma had hoped.
Relationships: Izumi Noa/Shinohara Asuma
Series: Miscellaneous Fics [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/662615
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	All In Good Fun

**Author's Note:**

> According to my notes I've been writing this fic in brief spurts since January, and it's only the latest of several half-written "asexual Noa" fics I've tried to write since I first got into Patlabor 2 years ago...so any way you look at it, this was a long time in the making!
> 
> I love the genuine friendship Asuma and Noa have in the series...it's so rare and nice to find a "designated canon pairing" that actually has a solid relationship that can easily be read as either platonic or romantic, VS a ship built around overt crushes or dating drama. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter, I just like having variety, and it does my ace heart good to get to see prominent non-sexual and/or non-romantic relationships in media. ...Of course, I say this and then all my ace heart writes are romantic and sexual fics, but the world works in mysterious ways. X'D

An exaggerated “Shall I escort you up, milady?” “As you wish, kind sir” had served as an invitation to her apartment. Because that’s how it was with Noa. They teased and joked and play-fought and sometimes real-fought, but always relaxed back into their easy rhythm. Making the leap from platonic to romantic hadn’t changed that as much as Asuma had thought it would, but honestly, that was a relief. He wouldn’t have known what to do if Noa had suddenly started batting heavily mascara’d eyelashes at him or, like, lounged seductively across a piano. A pantomime parody of a sultry voice punctuated with unrestrained giggles suited Asuma just fine.

As luck would have it, they had the elevator to themselves. So Asuma went on with his performance—“The mere sight of you could make the stars weep!” “ _Hahaha!_ You weirdo~”—and stroked his thumb across the hand held loosely in his own before lifting it up for a smacking wet kiss.

“ _Gross!_ ” Noa laughed, slipping her hand from his grasp and dancingly dodging his attempts to recapture it. He chased her around the little elevator as best he could, she giggling and shrieking, until he finally felt her body brush up against his. Then the elevator doors opened and she was escaping down the hall.

Noa was in better shape than he was, and also had a head start. But she had to stop in front of her door to search for her keys, and her face was slightly flushed, and those blazing blue eyes glanced at him as he pounded up beside her...and then her temple was just too inviting _not_ to kiss.

Noa laughed again. It was adorable. Asuma kissed her again, a little lower. He worked his way peckingly down to her cheek, countering her attempts to lightly bat him away with a firm grip around her shoulders.

“ _Geez_ ,” Noa groaned, twisting her face away at the same moment she twisted the key in the lock. The movement brushed Asuma’s lips across her jawbone instead of the corner of her mouth. Which...was grinning a little too tight. Wasn’t it?

“Stingy,” Asuma snorted, making sure he smiled as he said it. Noa didn’t reply, but she also didn’t touch the hand he had resting on her shoulder.

Asuma had kissed her before. Not on the mouth, yet. But on the cheek plenty of times. On her forehead...on the side of her neck, once, which had actually made her yelp. He thought about that a lot. The surprisingly high pitch of the noise she had made. And just yesterday, when they’d parted ways after work, Noa had grabbed his collar and smashed the side of his face against her lips and nuzzled into him for a heart-poundingly long time. Then she’d laughed and flicked his forehead and said something he hadn’t remembered as vividly as the rest of it. He’d been thinking about that nonstop ever since.

He thought about it again as the door opened and the pair of them stepped inside. And now Noa was speaking again, something about the dinner they’d just had, and her tone was as light and easy as ever. His hand was no longer on her shoulder, but that was natural, Noa was shrugging off her jacket. Asuma did the same, glancing around for a moment for a place to hang his. He had already unthinkingly slipped off his shoes, but once the jacket was gone from his hands, he saw that Noa was just bending over to unlace hers.

Bending over.

Right in front of him.

...Asuma swallowed.

Then the grin was back on his face and he was scooping her up—she let out an almost-as-good yelp—pulling her into a hug, carefully, _carefully_ wrapping his arms a good inch below her chest as he cackled dramatically—“I have you now, my pretty!”—not entirely on-theme with the rest of this evening’s banter, but hey, this was stream-of-consciousness, not sketch comedy—and pressing loud kisses down the back of her neck.

Noa was laughing. Even in a blood-pounding daze, Asuma could tell the difference between her laughter and his. She was laughing as she squirmed, and the swatting hands had no force behind them. “ _Asuma~!_ ” she whined, and yes, she was laughing.

Then Asuma spun her around, gripping her suddenly very-still arms, peppering kisses from her forehead to her nose—“Asuma.”—to her cheek—“ _Asuma..._ ”—and made the final approach to her lips—

...Those didn’t feel like lips.

It actually took him a few seconds to notice. But finally his eyes fluttered open.

Asuma’s vision was mostly fingers. His mouth, it seemed, was smashed firmly into Noa’s palm.

But it was Noa’s face beyond the blurry too-close fingers that really made him stop.

“I’m not stupid.” The words were oddly cold, polite. Like the gaze beneath those intensely furrowed brows. “I know what this is.”

Asuma dutifully put his hands up and took a step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He was smiling again, but this time in self-defense. “Hey, c’mon, I—look, I’m not about to bodyslam you into your futon, all right? I just— _you know_ —thought we could—I mean—”

Noa’s eyebrows were pinched together in a hard “V”. But the point of it kept wobbling. Asuma knew this face. This face was bad news. This face was “the second I’m alone I’m going to start crying.” Was she really that mad at him?

“Look, I’m _sorry_ , all right?” Asuma exploded in a panic. He tried to slip his hand across her cheek, felt like he’d been slapped when she flinched away. “I just—honest, all I wanted to do was _kiss_ you!”

Not entirely honest. That wasn’t all he’d _wanted_ to do. But “all I’d planned to do unless I received explicit consent” didn’t roll off the tongue so well.

...Noa’s eyes were wet.

Asuma stared at her for a moment. The “V” never stopped quivering.

He swallowed again.

“You...” His voice came out small. “You don’t want to kiss me?”

“ _NO!_ ”

Her voice was sharp. So was the grip of her hand on his shirt.

“That’s not—” Noa choked, and Asuma felt panic bubble back up over his despair. She was trying _so_ hard not to cry. He loved her and feared her and wanted to console her and scream all at once. “I didn’t mean I _don’t_ —it’s—I’m just—”

Her fingers dug into the thin fabric. She was standing so close now, bent double over the hem of his shirt, an unruly mass of auburn hair hiding her face from his view. She hadn’t been like this with him for a long time. Not since they’d left Section 2. Not since she’d left the stress of real combat behind. They only laughed and played with each other these days. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t _right_. This wasn’t—

“...Are you scared?” Asuma said, finally.

A pause.

Slowly, Noa nodded. Head still bowed, face never in view.

“Of kissing?”

Another slow, jerky nod.

A wry smile crept across Asuma’s mouth.

“What, you think you’re gonna moan _‘Alphonse~’?_ ”

She would giggle uproariously from the joke and the tickling nuzzle of his lips blowing raspberries up and down the side of her throat. Then he’d tighten the hug around her, kiss her tenderly, _deliberately,_ hold it as long as she needed to feel assured, and the date would either end on a high note or continue to a higher one.

...Except she didn’t.

She made a soft noise in the back of her throat and turned aside so that Asuma’s lunging lips only brushed the shell of her ear.

“Hey,” Asuma said.

Noa didn’t respond.

“ _Hey_ ,” he said again, because he couldn’t think of anything else. Now _his_ brows were starting to furrow.

Asuma gripped her arms and shook her—a little more roughly than he’d intended—because this was starting to sound like something he had absolutely no idea how to react to. (Of course everyone had made jokes around the office, but they _were_ just _jokes_ , right? Nobody _really—_ well, maybe some of the guys on the mechanics’ squad, but—that is, he didn’t _know_ but he wouldn’t exactly have been _surprised_ —but really— _really_ —)

“Noa, do _you—_ ”

“ _It’s not like that!_ ”

Noa’s head whipped up as she blurted it out. Her face was red and glisteningly wet, but her gaze was intense.

“He’s just a _Labor_ ,” she went on, angry, determined, and...maybe...a little bit desperate? “I’m not in _love_ with him.”

Silence stretched out for a moment.

“Hey—” Asuma said. But Noa looked away and spilled words over him.

“When I was in high school...” she said, and although her words came out fast, Asuma’s imagination worked faster.

_‘...A boy touched me in a way I didn’t like...’_

“...there was this friend of mine...”

_‘...Even though we were both girls, I couldn’t help feeling...’_

“...a guy from my neighborhood, we knew each other since we were little kids...”

_‘...and then he touched me in a way I didn’t like...’_

“...and then one day he came to school in a bright red Dodge Charger and, I um. Suddenly liked him.”

Asuma blinked.

The embarrassment was still there, but this was Noa’s battle face, the defiant glare of being challenged and rising to meet it. “I mean, I didn’t _realize_ that, not—” An irritated huff through her nose, arms spreading wide. “I just started hanging around him a lot and felt a little dizzy and heart-pound-y and I mean, I’d _heard_ about _puberty_ so it was probably time—” Her face flushed even deeper, but her jaw remained firm. “But then one day he started complaining that every time he tried to kiss me I just asked him something about his car, and I really, _really_ hadn’t thought about it before, but every time he drove me somewhere I was just watching his hands on the wheel and his feet on the pedals and wondering what it was like to drive it, and I realized—”

“ _YOU WANTED TO FUCK HIS CAR?!_ ”

Asuma’s hand slapped so hard against his mouth that he actually stumbled backwards. Noa was staring, eyes wide, god that had come out _genuinely_ panicked, hadn’t it?

Then a laugh exploded out of her throat. Another. And Noa was bent double, laughing herself breathless, her hands on her knees. Then Asuma was laughing too, and it was like all the tension had spilled out of him.

“I _didn’t—_ ” Noa wheezed, eyes streaming again, “I—I really—”

With an effort, she straightened up, coughing out chuckles and wiping her eyes. She was so cute. _So_ cute. Asuma had to force his hands into his pockets to stop himself from throwing them around her.

“I...” A swallow. The grin fell from the corner of her mouth, and now her eyes were flicking shyly up at him like a child. “...I...mean it, though. He really wanted to kiss me, but I...um...what I really wanted was to drive his car.”

“I don’t have a car,” Asuma tried to chuckle. Noa grinned, but it was tight again.

“But you really want to kiss me.”

A pause.

“...Yeah.”

“And I want to kiss you, too. Honest. I just...don’t think...”

Noa closed her eyes. She breathed in through her nose. She opened them again and met his gaze.

“I don’t think I want it the same way you do. And I’m scared...you won’t like that.”

...Asuma looked steadily back at her.

A thousand jokes bubbled up in his mind. Easy responses that would surely brush off the concern and make her happy again. But that’s not what this was. That’s not what they were right now.

So instead, he told her the truth.

“I like you, Noa.”

A smile spread across his face, and it wasn’t a smirk.

“I like you just the way you are.”

And then Noa was really crying. She completely fell apart, tears gushing, knees wobbling, and launched into his arms without a moment’s hesitation. He held her tight, pressed her shaking body against his, and cradled her while the storm passed.

“I-it’s okay if...” she choked, “if—if you w-wanna just stay f-f- _friends_...”

“C’mon. We’ve been friends all along, haven’t we?”

A shuddering snort, and a gentle fist bapping against his shoulder. “Y’know wha’ I m- _mean_.”

“Okay, okay.” Asuma threaded his fingers through her hair, rocking from side to side, just the way she liked, just the way she needed it after a rough battle. They weren’t just friends. He was still her backup. He was her support. He couldn’t believe they’d been able to just _play_ for so long that he’d actually forgotten this. “Do _you_ want to stay ‘just friends’?”

“...Do _you?_ ”

Asuma’s deep sigh was only for the deflected question. He already knew his answer. He’d already articulated most of these thoughts to himself when he’d first started to see her as a potential lover and not just a slightly curvy pal.

“You’re the most important person in my world, princess. I want to at least give this a shot.”

Noa gripped him in a tight squeeze. The press of her body made Asuma’s nostrils flare with a different kind of sigh.

“...Even if you don’t want to have sex with me.”

“I never said that.”

Then suddenly they were at arm’s length and Noa’s tear-crusted face was matter-of-fact while Asuma stared back like she’d just turned inside-out.

“Okay, I don’t _know_ if I want to have sex with you,” she said, and Asuma found her sudden frankness about the subject absolutely appalling. “I just don’t feel that kind of...um...” After a moment of fumbling for a word, Noa decided instead to shut her eyes and writhe and gasp in a high falsetto. “ ‘ _Ooh~! Aaaaasumaaa~! You’re so hot, I just_ have _to touch your—’_ ”

The rest was lost in a genuine gasp as Asuma smashed his lips against hers.

Because, really, this was _hardly_ the time for jokes.


End file.
